


Troublemaker (In A Nice Suit)

by copperbadge



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Backstory, M/M, Pre-COE, Tailoring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-13
Updated: 2008-06-13
Packaged: 2017-12-18 03:56:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperbadge/pseuds/copperbadge
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Afon Jones was a tailor with a shop convenient to the Plass and a son called Troublemaker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Troublemaker (In A Nice Suit)

Ianto loved his father's shop. He loved the smell of warm wool, all the different textures, the greasy hum of the sewing machine and the leather needle-pusher his father wore on his thumb for the delicate work. Loved the people who came and went and equally the quiet of the shop in the warm Cardiff summer afternoons, when business was slow and his father would sit and work quietly while Ianto stocked the shelves and did the inventory and, after he turned fourteen, the books as well.

Ianto always had a head for maths, and for names and faces as well. 

He saw Jack Harkness sixty-four times before Afon Jones died. 

(He wasn't to know, but Ianto also saw the Doctor in all but three of his incarnations; the shop was convenient to the Plass, which was why Captain Harkness used it, and thus a short walk from a refueling TARDIS, which was why the Doctor used it.)

***

"You know I try to be a loyal customer but he's absolutely screwed it up, he's always screwing it up, and this is the last straw," said an American voice. "Please be better than him, because I need a new tailor."

"Mm, yes, I can see that," Dad said, giving the man a practiced once-over. 

"Just, completely ballsed it," and that sounded funny in the flat accent the man spoke in.

"He's got your inseam wrong, for a start."

Ianto, hiding behind a rack of suits, burrowed through the comforting smooth silk-tweed and peered out, watching as his father fussed around the tall, broad-shouldered man. 

"He did?" the man said, twisting to study the cut of the trousers across his thighs. "You can tell that from there?"

His father gave the man a dry look and crossed his arms. "I don't think they're worth salvage, frankly."

The American waved this off. "Can you make me something that doesn't try to castrate me every time I run?"

"Of course, Mr...?"

"Harkness, Captain Jack Harkness. Feeling constricted," Captain Harkness said. Ianto snickered, which was a mistake; the man's head snapped up and bright blue eyes fixed on his face. 

"Don't look now," he drawled, "but I think your suits are spawning."

"Ianto!" his father boomed. "Haven't you stock to be packing?"

Ianto emerged from the coats, feeling suddenly shy in front of the American. 

"Can't reach the higher shelves," he said petulantly. "You said I couldn't climb them anymore."

"Your kid?" Captain Harkness asked.

"My Troublemaker," his father said reprovingly. 

"Hiya, Troublemaker," Captain Harkness offered his hand. "I'm Jack."

Ianto looked to his father for permission before taking the enormous broad hand and shaking firmly. "Pleased to meet you, sir."

"How old are you, eight?"

"Six, sir."

"Tall for your age. Going to be a tailor like your dad?"

"No, Captain Harkness," he said, and heard his father sigh pre-emptively.

"Dressmaker?" Captain Harkness asked with a grin.

"No sir, a superhero sir," Ianto replied soberly. Usually people laughed; Captain Harkness just cocked his head. Ianto was quite serious about being a superhero.

"Tough gig. You're better off being a tailor."

"Run along," Dad ordered. "I'll check your work when I've done with Captain Harkness."

"Cute kid," he heard Captain Harkness say, as he bolted back into the store-room in back. 

"Thank you, sir. Now, about these trousers..."

***

Captain Harkness came into the shop five or six times a year, on average, to have shirts and trousers made; the first few times he simply brought clothing for alteration, but Ianto's father always clucked slightly at the poor quality of the clothing and often as not, by the time Ianto was eight, Captain Harkness simply had his shirts made in the shop. It was easier, and they wore longer. 

"Now there," his father would say, as Captain Harkness left the shop, "is a man of substance and grace, Ianto. He understands the futility of fashion and the appeal of the classic style, and he chooses to pay for the best."

"Are we the best, Dad?"

"Indeed we are."

The year Ianto was ten, Captain Harkness commissioned his father to make him an entire formal suit with an old-fashioned frock coat, modernised just enough to fit the current styles. Dad had his measurements on file, of course, but they re-measured just to be sure, Dad with the tape and Ianto standing back, out of eyeshot, taking down the measurements as they were called out. 

When the suit was done and the final fitting underway, Dad stepped back and looked at the Captain, who was fiddling with the buttons on his waistcoat.

"You wear this extremely well," he said. 

"That's more your doing than mine."

"I don't know; I've had many a client unwilling to bow to my taste in these matters, and not everyone could hold the line of the suit so well as you do."

"Well," the Captain said, smiling with dazzling white teeth. "I've had practice."

***

Between Ianto's twelfth and fourteenth years another man often accompanied Captain Harkness to the shop, a slim, short man with pale brown hair. The Captain always paid, despite the fact that the brown-haired man usually went away with more clothing than he did himself. 

"Ah, the Captain's courting," his father said fondly.

Two months after Ianto's fourteenth birthday, the Captain came alone.

"And how is Mr. Bell?" Dad asked cheerfully. "Not with you today?"

"No," the Captain said, his voice flat and dark. "He's dead."

Ianto looked nervously at his father, who bowed his head slightly. "My apologies, Captain Harkness. And my condolences."

"Thank you," Captain Harkness said, and didn't say anything more about it. 

***

Ianto's father died when Ianto was seventeen, and there was a huge funeral. His father had a lot of friends but, as it turned out, not a lot of money, and Ianto went to London to seek his fortune. That is a story for another time. 

Three days after Gwen's wedding, Jack turned to him in the car and said, "Afon Jones."

"Ianto, Jack," he corrected, with a slight smile.

"No, your father. Your father was Afon Jones, my tailor. That's why you said I knew your father was a master tailor."

"Yes," Ianto said. 

"Which means you were the little Troublemaker," Jack continued, eyes dancing. "You were going to be a superhero when you grew up."

"I didn't think you'd remember."

"It took me long enough. But if you remembered me, you must have known. Something. When I didn't age from the time you were six until the time you were twenty-three."

Ianto shrugged. "I thought perhaps you just aged well."

"Not like you not to be a little inquisitive, at least."

"I was preoccupied," Ianto said. Jack nodded and frowned. 

"I didn't remember your name. I think he always called you Troublemaker."

"Fairly apt, I suppose."

Jack laughed. "I'll remember that."

They rode on in silence for a while, until Jack cleared his throat.

"He made me a great suit," he said conversationally. "I got it when I met Nolan Bell."

"I remember him."

"I knew the week I met him I was going to marry him," Jack continued. "Not that it was legal then. Didn't matter, really." He paused. "I never got to wear it for Nolan -- we were going to but -- he was Torchwood."

Ianto knew what that meant. He made a note to find the drawer Nolan Bell was buried in.

"I took it out last week to air it," Jack said quietly. 

"Oh?" Ianto could feel his breath catch slightly. 

"Yeah. I could have a new one made, but..." Jack gave him a look, an oddly, uncharacteristically hesitant smile. "It's a good suit."

"Jack, are you sure -- " Ianto blurted, then stopped.

"I'm always sure. But if you aren't -- are you sure?"

He bit his lip. "Yeah. A bit. Think I am."

Jack's smile widened. "Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"All right," Jack said. "All right. You'll have to have a suit made too, though."

"Well, I know a good tailor," Ianto said, and Jack let out a whoop of laughter.


End file.
